80后爱情观大调查——80后的我们爱得都很自私
“乱码叙事”
——关于由金与他的作品
王易罡
几乎没有什么人还感觉不到数码图像对我们今天生活所发生的深刻的改变。数码的组合、数码的描述方式悄然的进入了我们的生活。原有的电子显像的图像模式被高清仿真数字组合程序取而代之。这种高清仿真的数字组合，形成了一个强大的数字图像，对人们的想象有着更强烈的欺骗性，这些清晰的数字图像试图告诉人们，“这个”图像的世界才是“真实”的。事实上，当你看到这个“真实”的时候，这种“真实”却早已离你越来越远。很多时候我们在视觉感官上已经对这个虚拟的数码图像形成了一种依赖，几乎不再去探寻现实生活中那些更能超越数码图像的更真实的东西。事实上，我们是生活在一个不真实的虚拟的数码图像的时代。
这个虚拟的数字世界里，逻辑程序化是它的核心，一旦脱离了某种特定的逻辑与程序，便出现了我们将要讨论的问题，那就是“乱码与叙事”。
“乱码”就像我们生活中的一种瘟疫，它几乎无所不在。大在今天的社会生存空间，小在我们手机、计算机等一切与数字图像有关的用品中，这种“乱码”无时无刻不让我们深恶痛绝。无论这种“乱码”是人为形成的，还是自然机器运行所出现的常规性的问题，它都将给我们的生活造成某种潜在的，无可估量的危害。我们应该还不会这么快的忘记前南斯拉夫中国大使馆的那颗导弹，它是所谓的由于美国军方的数字计算错误造成的后果。是吗？太掩耳盗铃了吧！我们无时无刻都可以感受到乱码充斥着我们的生活并给我们带来烦恼。数字、条码、电视、电脑的存在是客观也是无情的，它已经形成了对我们生存空间的某种困扰。
由金通过他的绘画作品，鲜明的向我们展示出了“乱码”时代及图像误读所形成的不同视觉感受。他所要采取的是一种将错就错的思维观念，即通过乱码所形成错误的图像及像素错误的变异的图形，所形成的不准确的、虚拟的、抽象化的形象加以强化组合，从而形成一种在错误图像中再制造的错误。如果我们按照这种逻辑判断下去的结果将是一种具有毁灭性的灾难。这是一个带有悲剧性的世界，而在这种带有悲情图像的世界里，在由金看来是具有某种审美性的。于是他便利用了错误，讲述错误，以此来提示今天生活存在的空间里，我们所面临的世界是一种多么危险，不真实与混乱。
由金出生在70年代末，他对艺术的热爱与追求是真诚而感人的。在中学时代里，他曾经历三次考试，最终考入鲁迅美术学院附中。事实上他当时的年龄按学院的要求已超过了半岁，但由于他的绘画成绩优秀而破格录取。他附中期间的学习成绩一直优异，大多数作品都是被用来作学校同年级的教学示范。他有着非常坚实的具象绘画基础。而大学本科考试时他又意外的没有被他所热爱的专业油画系录取，却考入了平面多媒体设计专业，这让他十分郁闷。 当时他来看我，我安慰他说：“考不上油画系也无所谓，你看看今天中国当代很多优秀艺术家都不是从油画系出来的，方力钧、岳敏君、刘炜、杨少斌，特别是杨少斌，大学都没上过，也不影响他成为优秀的艺术家！而且多媒体很重要，在现在的艺术表达方式中多媒体的力量远远大于绘画，要认真研究，它将是你的长处，是与众不同的优势，关键就看你将来如何来把握它了。大连有任戬不错，要和他学习”。但一路走来的由金从未放弃对绘画艺术的追求。
在大连经过两年的基础学习后，第三年（03年）的时候由金回到沈阳鲁美的本院，同时他在学院的附近租了一间工作室，不停的创作。那时，他涉及的东西比较多，音乐、诗歌、多媒体及平面设计，同时还画了一批油画作品。我看过他早期的一些作品，感觉许多画都比较注重光线的变化，常常看到的是在画面主体上呈现出不寻常的明暗关系，我觉得他是一心想把油画画好的，不过有一些障碍，心里有表达的追求，只是还不够清晰。但当时，他已经开始参与一些与当代艺术有关的活动了。如2005年第15届巴西国际电子艺术节（庞贝剧场，圣保罗，巴西）和 “划痕，惑”：中国新加坡数字影像艺术交流展（新锐艺术计划，中国，北京），在参与的过程中逐渐的完善着自己。大概是04年末，他对我说要去北京做职业艺术家，我说：“你早就应该走，在东北你会被埋没，而且很辛苦。”这样他就到了北京，开始一个职业艺术家的生涯。06年夏天的一个晚上他给我打来电话说在上海朱屺瞻美术馆给一些年轻人做一个展览，要求每人捐赠一件作品，美术馆选择了他一件较大的作品。这件作品他自己也是比较满意的，他很心疼，我对他说你们年青人很不容易，这是刚刚开始起步，给美术馆留下一件作品不是一件坏事，将来的路还很长。我让他把最近的作品发给我看看，当我看到那些作品时，我的眼前一亮，感觉到由金开始走向成熟了。几乎所有的作品我都非常喜欢，并从中看到了他的才华与睿智。
在高度发达的现代化的资讯社会里，生活变得越来越科技智能化。历史图像的阅读，导致了知识的平面化、通俗化，历史及现实都成了被消费的对象，我们的过去及今天生活中所存在的问题，都可以在消费及廉价的娱乐中被淡忘。我们的生活是在一种不确定性的光幻虚拟的世界中生成。我第一次看到由金到了北京之后的作品是给我的这样一种感觉。在他早期的作品中，还有一些流行绘画的图式，而在05年的作品中我便感觉到了质的变化。从一种具象观念性的绘画中走出来，变为一种平面性带有某种抽象图像意味的绘画。同时更为可贵的是从一种个人内心关怀走向社会人文关怀。把个人的视野放置在了一个更为广阔的空间之中。这种变化是一种决定性的改变，才使得由金的表现能在一个更加宽泛的社会语境中展现的更加充分。那么，在他06年的“当代启示录”系列中，他在观念上结合许多问题：城市、战争、历史、政治、时尚文化等等，被他分别的组合在不同的画面里。在绘画手法上，图像的翻转与锐化的现代科技手段的使用，为他提供了一个崭新的视觉感受世界。电脑科技图像成为他创作的艺术绘画元素，如《当代启示录-轰炸机》、《当代启示录-夜花园》、《当代启示录-美丽的城池》。在这里他所选择的是在大面积的黑色背景下，把前面的主体形象处理在同一个明度里，以黄色为主要光源色，从而形成了一种具有霓虹灯般的画面效果，这就更加为我们增添了世界的光怪陆离的不确定与虚拟之感。
由金努力追求在画面中营造出一种有机的形态下，创造出一种无机的绘画状态。而这种绘画方式一旦确定下来，便被他运用在更深更广的人文关怀的诉求表达中。
在07年的《碰瓷》系列中，他向我们更进一步的表达了现代工业科技为人类带来的灾难与恐慌。他利用了许多汽车相撞的图像，向我们暗示了工业及社会消费的世界中所存在的种种问题，从而引发了商品变换的社会有效性与其“意识”之间这种关系的极重要的悖论：对现实的这种无-知（non-knowledge）是其真正本质的组成部分，交换过程的社会有效与无效性，是一种只有在参与的个体没有意识到其特有逻辑的条件下才可能的现实，也就是一种其本体论的一致性暗示其参与者的某种无-知的现实——如果我们“了解太多”，“识破了社会现实的真正作用，这种现实将会自行消解”。由金在这种特有的商品及物欲的所求中所形成的社会症候的现象，做出了直觉性的反映，同时也暗示他是深陷其中而无法回避的社会症候的无-知的参与者，也是一个被交换社会分子结构中的一环。几乎我们每一个人都是身在其中的。
他通过对汽车相撞的解读，制造出了一批模糊的、流动性的色彩线性构成图像，数码复制被重叠在黑色具有毁灭性的背景中。艳丽的色彩与黑色的背景，形成的是一种华丽的悲剧，它是灿烂的涅磐。大众的消费是在一种无知与不自觉中尽情享受快乐的同时，也在不停的耗散着自己。而对自然物欲的索取及高科技不间断的发展，为我们的生活创造便利的同时更是为人类自身挖掘了墓葬。享受与悲伤、生成与毁灭的悖论，随时都在伴随着我们，我们可以感知到它，但又无法捕捉与回避。高度现代化下的自我并非是一个小小的自我。在广大的安全领域中，它有时是以微妙、有时是以赤裸裸的激荡方式与泛化的焦虑交织在一起的经验。躁动、预期和失望的情感，可能会与对一定形式的社会和技术机构的可靠性的信任一起混在个体的经验中。我们今天所面临一系列相关的文化生态问题：如自我、私人、身体等都是与全球一体化中的后现代传媒图像的消费关联，形成特有的浅层社会表征。
在《秘语》与《浮沉》中，我感觉在后现代的语系下对城市文化及历史进行一种反观性的思索，形成了一种浮沉的视觉印象，犹如海市蜃楼般的新都市景观。之所以是新都市景观，它的意义在于重新书写一种颠覆的历史，将过去那种形态及政治权利中心及一元化的历史，变成多元性的视觉图像。从而消解掉过去对于城市、权力中心的庄重神圣的意义。使它变成一种“所指”与“能指”之间的混合性与模糊性的语境，从而为再创造提供出一种新的可能。在重组后的城市景观中，我们看到由金对传统中国山水的图像式的选用，并把今天的都市景观安置在了传统山水的图式中，显然是在全球一体化中，无奈的注视着我们自身文化的流失。这仍是如前所述的在一种“无-知”与共谋中，自己在关注流失的同时，也在参与制造新的伤痛。我们在强调“软实力”的同时，也被来自另外一种文化中的“软实力”，解构我们传统文化中自身的内部核心力量。就如同我们今天生活中看到新中央电视台及水立方与鸟巢，它是新的地标，又是对我们自身文化传统的一种讽刺。我们在赞叹的同时，心里总还是有一点点淡淡的悲伤。在08年的作品中，他所努力工作的目标是希望把绘画因素削弱，并试图在自身的文化与传统中建立一种浅层的历史解读性。引起人们对传统自身的关注，从而使观念本身凸现出画面。
由金通过他对数码与电脑的有效使用，为我们编织出了消除绘画性的数码图像，用一种特有的叙事方式，为我们表达出了他对今天周遭的生存空间的认同与解读，并以此提示自己作为一个年轻的艺术家对社会及为未来所担负起的责任。同时，更是提示我们应对我们所生存的社会与空间及自身文化的认知上应该有所思索。如何更好地爱护与更有效地保护好本土文化与地域生态中宝贵的东西。这样，才能使我们有足够的信心面对未来。
王易罡于沈阳下深艺术园
2008年6月3日
Narration with Chaotic Code: On You Jin and His Works
Wang Yigang
Few people can be oblivious of the profound changes in our life brought by digital image, for digital combination and digital description and narration have entered our lives without clamor. The traditional electronic image gave way to high-resolution digital simulation configuration, producing digital images that are more powerful, and more deceptive to our imagination. What these high-definition pictures are trying to convey is that only “this” world of image is “real”. In fact, the moment we saw the “reality”, it has drifted away into the distance. Visually, we are, for most of the time, too dependent on such virtual digital image to explore in our life what is more real and superior to the digital images. We are actually living in an unreal world of virtual digital images.
In this virtual digital world characterized with programmed logic, any divorce from the programmed logic can lead to what we are going to discuss about as “chaotic code and narration”.
Wherever we go we are overwhelmed by the epidemic of chaotic code, ranging from such big one as social living space to the small one as our mobile phones, computers and all other stuff related to digital image—they are detestable. Artificial or natural, these garbled symbols are to bring about potential and inestimable disaster to our life. It is too soon for us to force off our mind the bombardment of the Chinese Embassy in former Yugoslavia, resulting from miscalculation on the part of American military force. Really? It is too self-deceptive. We are troubled by the ever-present garbled symbols every moment and everywhere. Numbers, bar codes, TV, and computer are objective existence, but unsympathetic as well, posing as threat to our living space.
You Jin, through his paintings, vividly conveys his various visual experience of misinterpretation of the images in an age of “chaotic code”. His technique might be called “over shoes, over boots”, that is, to regenerate mistakes from false images which is a reinforced combination of inaccurate, virtual and abstract images resulting from garbled-symbol-related false image or definition errors Judgment based on logic in this case is sure to lead to ruin. The world we have is one with a tinge of tragedy, while this world of tragic images, is of aesthetic quality to some extent, as far as You Jin is concerned. Therefore, he makes use of the errors and talk about them so as to reveal and give the warning that the living space we find ourselves in is extremely dangerous, false and chaotic.
Born in the late 1970s, You Jin’s love of art is particularly strong and his persistence in the pursuit of art is really worth of admiring. As a middle school student, he got admission to the Affiliated High School of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts only after he took the third examination. In fact, he was then overage by six months, but for his excellent paintings, the school accepted him as an exception. He was straight A there and most his paintings were put up as examples for his classmates. He was very good at figurative painting, but, surprisingly, the college entrance examination did not give him a chance to be a student of the oil painting department, and instead,
he had to major in graphic and multimedia design. It was really depressing for him. “It does not matter if you are not admitted to the oil painting department,” I comforted him when he came to visit me. “We have quite a few outstanding artists who are not oil painting graduates, such as Fang Lijun, Yue Mingjun, Liu Wei, Yang Shaobin, and many others. Yang Shaobin is particularly worth of mentioning. He does not even have university background, but it does not prevent him from being a first-class painter. What is more, we can’t overlook multimedia, for, among various modern means of expression, it is by far more powerful than painting. You’d better work hard at it, and it will be your distinctive master card. The point is how you will make use of it. Ren Jian, in Dalian, is particularly good at it, so you have to learn from him.” However, You Jin, who is always keen on painting, has never given up his pursuit in this regard.
After two years’ basic studying in Dalian, You Jin returned to Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in
Shenyang in 2003. He rented a studio near the academy and kept working there. At that time, he
had a variety of activities, ranging from music and poetry to multimedia and graphic design, and a
lot of oil painting as well. Many of his early works gave me an impression that change in light was
the focus, which was reflected through particular light-dark contrast in the main body of the
picture. It seemed to me that he was keen to produce excellent works, but due to some obstacles,
he failed to express clearly what was on his mind. Anyway, he has began to take part in some
activities related to contemporary art, such as 15th Video Brazil International Electronic Art
Festival (SESC Pompéia, Sao Paulo, Brazil ) and Scratch-Or: China-Singapore Digital Image Art
Exhibition (New Generation Art Plan, Beijing, China), in which he continued to improve himself.
Toward the end of 2004, he told me that he decided to go to Beijing and be a professional artist. I
said, “You should have made such a decision, for you wouldn’t be recognized in the
Northeast and it means great efforts if you stay here.” So he started his career as a professional
artist in Beijing. On one evening in the spring of 2006 he called me saying that Zhu Qizhan Art
Museum in Shanghai was organizing an exhibition for young artists at, asking each
participants to donate one work, and one of his works, a big one, also his favorite, was chosen. He
was reluctant to part with it. I told him that it took young artist a lot to grow. It is only the starting
point, when it was certainly not something bad for him to contribute one work to the museum, for
he had a long way to go. I asked him to send me some of his recent works, which were to strike
me the moment I saw them—You Jin was becoming mature. I was impressed by almost all the
works, and, in particular, by his talent and insight.
Life, in this highly developed modern society based on information, is becoming more and more technology-and-intelligence related. The interpretation of historical image leads to complanation and popularization of knowledge, so that both history and reality are what to be consumed, and moreover, the problems in our life, prior of present, can be effaced from the memory amid consumption and cheap entertainment. Our life is generated from an uncertain virtual world of illusion. Such is the impression I got from You Jin’s paintings after he settled down in Beijing. In his early works, there were still traces of imitation in his painting pattern, while his works in 2005 experienced substantial changes— figurative paintings were replaced by planar ones with abstract image. What is more valuable is his transition from personal concern to humanism as a whole. The individuals were put in a broader context. This decisive change enables him to express his thought more thoroughly in a broader social context. In Contemporary Apocalypse Series (2006), various concerns, such as city, war, history, politics and popular culture, were combined and arranged in different tableaus. As to techniques, turning images blended with advanced modern technology offer him a completely new visual world. For him, computerized images can be used in painting, such as Contemporary Apocalypse: Bomber, Contemporary Apocalypse: Night-Garden and Contemporary Apocalypse: Beautiful City. In these series, the central figure in the front, in the wide background of darkness, is given the same brightness, with yellow the principal light source color, so that a neon-light effect is achieved, with the implication that the world is grotesque, uncertain and virtual.
You Jin’s paintings can be viewed as an effort to create inorganic state of painting by means of organic forms in the tableau. Once chosen, this way of painting is employed to express the more profound and broader human solicitude.
In Porcelain-crashing Series (2007), he depicted further the disaster and panic that modern industrial technology brings to human beings. Many pictures of car collision were used to raise our awareness of the problems in a world characterized with industry and social consumption, which leads to an important paradox about the relationship between the social availability of the transformation of goods and their sense—the non-knowledge of the reality is part of its essence, and the social availability and unavailability in the exchange can be realized only when the individual involved is unaware of the particular condition of logic, that is, a certain reality of non-knowledge implied to the involved subject in the ontological unity. If we are “too much informed” or “see through the actual role of social reality”, such reality will dissolve automatically. To the social symptom due to the particular demand for goods and satisfaction of desire for material, You Jin responded intuitively. It signifies at the same time that he himself is, without exception, within the frame of the society for exchange, and everybody is trapped in this frame.
The car collision series are composed of a series of images based on indistinct and moving colorful lines. Digital duplications are lapped over in a black and destructive background. Bright colors and black background bring forth a splendid tragedy, a resplendent nirvana. Mass consumption is a continuous dissipation of the subjects in the unconscious enjoyment. The ceaseless demand for natural resources and the ever-developing high-tech pave the way to hell for human beings while facilitating their life. We are all the time accompanied by the paradox of happiness and sadness, of birth and ruin. It can be sensed, but not caught and avoided. In the broad context of highly modernized world, the self is by no means a tiny unit in that in a broad and secure field, it sometimes takes the form of experience intermingled with turbulence, either subtle or naked, and generalized anxiety. Restlessness, expectation, and disappointment may be mixed with the trust one gives to a society or a technical institution to make up the individual experience. A series of issues related to cultural ecology of the present world, such as ego, privacy, and body, are all connected with the consumption of postmodern media images in the process of globalization, thus forming particular superficial social features.
Secret Susurrus and Up and Downs express a kind of reflective thinking of urban culture and history in the postmodern context. The paintings offer create a visual world of ups and downs, a mirage of new urban scene, which, in order to clear up the dignified and glorious significance of cities and centers of power in the past, is to rewrite the transformed history, i.e., to change the former state and the one-dimensional and politics-centered history into multi-dimensional visual images. History is thus turned into a mixed and misty context between the “signifier” and the “signified”, leading to new possibilities. The rearranged urban scene, given the natural settings particular to traditional Chinese landscape paintings, seems to be lament over the loss of our own culture in the process of globalization. Again, in non-knowledge conspiracy, one gets involved in producing new pain while focusing on the loss. While giving stress on “soft power”, we are facing with “soft power” from other cultures, which is clearing up the essential elements in our traditional culture. The new CCTV building, “Water Cube”, and “Bird’s Nest”, for example, are all new landmarks, but at the same time an irony to our traditional culture. Our amazement is accompanied with a tinge of melancholy. His goal for 2008 is to reduce the effect of painting, while trying to offer possibilities of superficial historic interpretation, to attract more attention to tradition, so that the message can be obvious in the tableau, speaking for itself.
The effective use of digital techniques and computer enables him to bring to us digital images free of painting elements, a particular way of narration to express how he identifies with and interprets the present living space, not only to remind himself as a young artist to assume social responsibility and responsibility for the future, but also to remind us to reflect over how to understand our society, living space and culture, and how to effectively take care of what is invaluable in our local culture and local ecology. Only in this way can we face the future with confidence.
Wang Yigang at Xiashen Art Garden, Sheyang,
June 3, 2008
——关于由金与他的作品
王易罡
几乎没有什么人还感觉不到数码图像对我们今天生活所发生的深刻的改变。数码的组合、数码的描述方式悄然的进入了我们的生活。原有的电子显像的图像模式被高清仿真数字组合程序取而代之。这种高清仿真的数字组合，形成了一个强大的数字图像，对人们的想象有着更强烈的欺骗性，这些清晰的数字图像试图告诉人们，“这个”图像的世界才是“真实”的。事实上，当你看到这个“真实”的时候，这种“真实”却早已离你越来越远。很多时候我们在视觉感官上已经对这个虚拟的数码图像形成了一种依赖，几乎不再去探寻现实生活中那些更能超越数码图像的更真实的东西。事实上，我们是生活在一个不真实的虚拟的数码图像的时代。
这个虚拟的数字世界里，逻辑程序化是它的核心，一旦脱离了某种特定的逻辑与程序，便出现了我们将要讨论的问题，那就是“乱码与叙事”。
“乱码”就像我们生活中的一种瘟疫，它几乎无所不在。大在今天的社会生存空间，小在我们手机、计算机等一切与数字图像有关的用品中，这种“乱码”无时无刻不让我们深恶痛绝。无论这种“乱码”是人为形成的，还是自然机器运行所出现的常规性的问题，它都将给我们的生活造成某种潜在的，无可估量的危害。我们应该还不会这么快的忘记前南斯拉夫中国大使馆的那颗导弹，它是所谓的由于美国军方的数字计算错误造成的后果。是吗？太掩耳盗铃了吧！我们无时无刻都可以感受到乱码充斥着我们的生活并给我们带来烦恼。数字、条码、电视、电脑的存在是客观也是无情的，它已经形成了对我们生存空间的某种困扰。
由金通过他的绘画作品，鲜明的向我们展示出了“乱码”时代及图像误读所形成的不同视觉感受。他所要采取的是一种将错就错的思维观念，即通过乱码所形成错误的图像及像素错误的变异的图形，所形成的不准确的、虚拟的、抽象化的形象加以强化组合，从而形成一种在错误图像中再制造的错误。如果我们按照这种逻辑判断下去的结果将是一种具有毁灭性的灾难。这是一个带有悲剧性的世界，而在这种带有悲情图像的世界里，在由金看来是具有某种审美性的。于是他便利用了错误，讲述错误，以此来提示今天生活存在的空间里，我们所面临的世界是一种多么危险，不真实与混乱。
由金出生在70年代末，他对艺术的热爱与追求是真诚而感人的。在中学时代里，他曾经历三次考试，最终考入鲁迅美术学院附中。事实上他当时的年龄按学院的要求已超过了半岁，但由于他的绘画成绩优秀而破格录取。他附中期间的学习成绩一直优异，大多数作品都是被用来作学校同年级的教学示范。他有着非常坚实的具象绘画基础。而大学本科考试时他又意外的没有被他所热爱的专业油画系录取，却考入了平面多媒体设计专业，这让他十分郁闷。 当时他来看我，我安慰他说：“考不上油画系也无所谓，你看看今天中国当代很多优秀艺术家都不是从油画系出来的，方力钧、岳敏君、刘炜、杨少斌，特别是杨少斌，大学都没上过，也不影响他成为优秀的艺术家！而且多媒体很重要，在现在的艺术表达方式中多媒体的力量远远大于绘画，要认真研究，它将是你的长处，是与众不同的优势，关键就看你将来如何来把握它了。大连有任戬不错，要和他学习”。但一路走来的由金从未放弃对绘画艺术的追求。
在大连经过两年的基础学习后，第三年（03年）的时候由金回到沈阳鲁美的本院，同时他在学院的附近租了一间工作室，不停的创作。那时，他涉及的东西比较多，音乐、诗歌、多媒体及平面设计，同时还画了一批油画作品。我看过他早期的一些作品，感觉许多画都比较注重光线的变化，常常看到的是在画面主体上呈现出不寻常的明暗关系，我觉得他是一心想把油画画好的，不过有一些障碍，心里有表达的追求，只是还不够清晰。但当时，他已经开始参与一些与当代艺术有关的活动了。如2005年第15届巴西国际电子艺术节（庞贝剧场，圣保罗，巴西）和 “划痕，惑”：中国新加坡数字影像艺术交流展（新锐艺术计划，中国，北京），在参与的过程中逐渐的完善着自己。大概是04年末，他对我说要去北京做职业艺术家，我说：“你早就应该走，在东北你会被埋没，而且很辛苦。”这样他就到了北京，开始一个职业艺术家的生涯。06年夏天的一个晚上他给我打来电话说在上海朱屺瞻美术馆给一些年轻人做一个展览，要求每人捐赠一件作品，美术馆选择了他一件较大的作品。这件作品他自己也是比较满意的，他很心疼，我对他说你们年青人很不容易，这是刚刚开始起步，给美术馆留下一件作品不是一件坏事，将来的路还很长。我让他把最近的作品发给我看看，当我看到那些作品时，我的眼前一亮，感觉到由金开始走向成熟了。几乎所有的作品我都非常喜欢，并从中看到了他的才华与睿智。
在高度发达的现代化的资讯社会里，生活变得越来越科技智能化。历史图像的阅读，导致了知识的平面化、通俗化，历史及现实都成了被消费的对象，我们的过去及今天生活中所存在的问题，都可以在消费及廉价的娱乐中被淡忘。我们的生活是在一种不确定性的光幻虚拟的世界中生成。我第一次看到由金到了北京之后的作品是给我的这样一种感觉。在他早期的作品中，还有一些流行绘画的图式，而在05年的作品中我便感觉到了质的变化。从一种具象观念性的绘画中走出来，变为一种平面性带有某种抽象图像意味的绘画。同时更为可贵的是从一种个人内心关怀走向社会人文关怀。把个人的视野放置在了一个更为广阔的空间之中。这种变化是一种决定性的改变，才使得由金的表现能在一个更加宽泛的社会语境中展现的更加充分。那么，在他06年的“当代启示录”系列中，他在观念上结合许多问题：城市、战争、历史、政治、时尚文化等等，被他分别的组合在不同的画面里。在绘画手法上，图像的翻转与锐化的现代科技手段的使用，为他提供了一个崭新的视觉感受世界。电脑科技图像成为他创作的艺术绘画元素，如《当代启示录-轰炸机》、《当代启示录-夜花园》、《当代启示录-美丽的城池》。在这里他所选择的是在大面积的黑色背景下，把前面的主体形象处理在同一个明度里，以黄色为主要光源色，从而形成了一种具有霓虹灯般的画面效果，这就更加为我们增添了世界的光怪陆离的不确定与虚拟之感。
由金努力追求在画面中营造出一种有机的形态下，创造出一种无机的绘画状态。而这种绘画方式一旦确定下来，便被他运用在更深更广的人文关怀的诉求表达中。
在07年的《碰瓷》系列中，他向我们更进一步的表达了现代工业科技为人类带来的灾难与恐慌。他利用了许多汽车相撞的图像，向我们暗示了工业及社会消费的世界中所存在的种种问题，从而引发了商品变换的社会有效性与其“意识”之间这种关系的极重要的悖论：对现实的这种无-知（non-knowledge）是其真正本质的组成部分，交换过程的社会有效与无效性，是一种只有在参与的个体没有意识到其特有逻辑的条件下才可能的现实，也就是一种其本体论的一致性暗示其参与者的某种无-知的现实——如果我们“了解太多”，“识破了社会现实的真正作用，这种现实将会自行消解”。由金在这种特有的商品及物欲的所求中所形成的社会症候的现象，做出了直觉性的反映，同时也暗示他是深陷其中而无法回避的社会症候的无-知的参与者，也是一个被交换社会分子结构中的一环。几乎我们每一个人都是身在其中的。
他通过对汽车相撞的解读，制造出了一批模糊的、流动性的色彩线性构成图像，数码复制被重叠在黑色具有毁灭性的背景中。艳丽的色彩与黑色的背景，形成的是一种华丽的悲剧，它是灿烂的涅磐。大众的消费是在一种无知与不自觉中尽情享受快乐的同时，也在不停的耗散着自己。而对自然物欲的索取及高科技不间断的发展，为我们的生活创造便利的同时更是为人类自身挖掘了墓葬。享受与悲伤、生成与毁灭的悖论，随时都在伴随着我们，我们可以感知到它，但又无法捕捉与回避。高度现代化下的自我并非是一个小小的自我。在广大的安全领域中，它有时是以微妙、有时是以赤裸裸的激荡方式与泛化的焦虑交织在一起的经验。躁动、预期和失望的情感，可能会与对一定形式的社会和技术机构的可靠性的信任一起混在个体的经验中。我们今天所面临一系列相关的文化生态问题：如自我、私人、身体等都是与全球一体化中的后现代传媒图像的消费关联，形成特有的浅层社会表征。
在《秘语》与《浮沉》中，我感觉在后现代的语系下对城市文化及历史进行一种反观性的思索，形成了一种浮沉的视觉印象，犹如海市蜃楼般的新都市景观。之所以是新都市景观，它的意义在于重新书写一种颠覆的历史，将过去那种形态及政治权利中心及一元化的历史，变成多元性的视觉图像。从而消解掉过去对于城市、权力中心的庄重神圣的意义。使它变成一种“所指”与“能指”之间的混合性与模糊性的语境，从而为再创造提供出一种新的可能。在重组后的城市景观中，我们看到由金对传统中国山水的图像式的选用，并把今天的都市景观安置在了传统山水的图式中，显然是在全球一体化中，无奈的注视着我们自身文化的流失。这仍是如前所述的在一种“无-知”与共谋中，自己在关注流失的同时，也在参与制造新的伤痛。我们在强调“软实力”的同时，也被来自另外一种文化中的“软实力”，解构我们传统文化中自身的内部核心力量。就如同我们今天生活中看到新中央电视台及水立方与鸟巢，它是新的地标，又是对我们自身文化传统的一种讽刺。我们在赞叹的同时，心里总还是有一点点淡淡的悲伤。在08年的作品中，他所努力工作的目标是希望把绘画因素削弱，并试图在自身的文化与传统中建立一种浅层的历史解读性。引起人们对传统自身的关注，从而使观念本身凸现出画面。
由金通过他对数码与电脑的有效使用，为我们编织出了消除绘画性的数码图像，用一种特有的叙事方式，为我们表达出了他对今天周遭的生存空间的认同与解读，并以此提示自己作为一个年轻的艺术家对社会及为未来所担负起的责任。同时，更是提示我们应对我们所生存的社会与空间及自身文化的认知上应该有所思索。如何更好地爱护与更有效地保护好本土文化与地域生态中宝贵的东西。这样，才能使我们有足够的信心面对未来。
王易罡于沈阳下深艺术园
2008年6月3日
Narration with Chaotic Code: On You Jin and His Works
Wang Yigang
Few people can be oblivious of the profound changes in our life brought by digital image, for digital combination and digital description and narration have entered our lives without clamor. The traditional electronic image gave way to high-resolution digital simulation configuration, producing digital images that are more powerful, and more deceptive to our imagination. What these high-definition pictures are trying to convey is that only “this” world of image is “real”. In fact, the moment we saw the “reality”, it has drifted away into the distance. Visually, we are, for most of the time, too dependent on such virtual digital image to explore in our life what is more real and superior to the digital images. We are actually living in an unreal world of virtual digital images.
In this virtual digital world characterized with programmed logic, any divorce from the programmed logic can lead to what we are going to discuss about as “chaotic code and narration”.
Wherever we go we are overwhelmed by the epidemic of chaotic code, ranging from such big one as social living space to the small one as our mobile phones, computers and all other stuff related to digital image—they are detestable. Artificial or natural, these garbled symbols are to bring about potential and inestimable disaster to our life. It is too soon for us to force off our mind the bombardment of the Chinese Embassy in former Yugoslavia, resulting from miscalculation on the part of American military force. Really? It is too self-deceptive. We are troubled by the ever-present garbled symbols every moment and everywhere. Numbers, bar codes, TV, and computer are objective existence, but unsympathetic as well, posing as threat to our living space.
You Jin, through his paintings, vividly conveys his various visual experience of misinterpretation of the images in an age of “chaotic code”. His technique might be called “over shoes, over boots”, that is, to regenerate mistakes from false images which is a reinforced combination of inaccurate, virtual and abstract images resulting from garbled-symbol-related false image or definition errors Judgment based on logic in this case is sure to lead to ruin. The world we have is one with a tinge of tragedy, while this world of tragic images, is of aesthetic quality to some extent, as far as You Jin is concerned. Therefore, he makes use of the errors and talk about them so as to reveal and give the warning that the living space we find ourselves in is extremely dangerous, false and chaotic.
Born in the late 1970s, You Jin’s love of art is particularly strong and his persistence in the pursuit of art is really worth of admiring. As a middle school student, he got admission to the Affiliated High School of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts only after he took the third examination. In fact, he was then overage by six months, but for his excellent paintings, the school accepted him as an exception. He was straight A there and most his paintings were put up as examples for his classmates. He was very good at figurative painting, but, surprisingly, the college entrance examination did not give him a chance to be a student of the oil painting department, and instead,
he had to major in graphic and multimedia design. It was really depressing for him. “It does not matter if you are not admitted to the oil painting department,” I comforted him when he came to visit me. “We have quite a few outstanding artists who are not oil painting graduates, such as Fang Lijun, Yue Mingjun, Liu Wei, Yang Shaobin, and many others. Yang Shaobin is particularly worth of mentioning. He does not even have university background, but it does not prevent him from being a first-class painter. What is more, we can’t overlook multimedia, for, among various modern means of expression, it is by far more powerful than painting. You’d better work hard at it, and it will be your distinctive master card. The point is how you will make use of it. Ren Jian, in Dalian, is particularly good at it, so you have to learn from him.” However, You Jin, who is always keen on painting, has never given up his pursuit in this regard.
After two years’ basic studying in Dalian, You Jin returned to Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in
Shenyang in 2003. He rented a studio near the academy and kept working there. At that time, he
had a variety of activities, ranging from music and poetry to multimedia and graphic design, and a
lot of oil painting as well. Many of his early works gave me an impression that change in light was
the focus, which was reflected through particular light-dark contrast in the main body of the
picture. It seemed to me that he was keen to produce excellent works, but due to some obstacles,
he failed to express clearly what was on his mind. Anyway, he has began to take part in some
activities related to contemporary art, such as 15th Video Brazil International Electronic Art
Festival (SESC Pompéia, Sao Paulo, Brazil ) and Scratch-Or: China-Singapore Digital Image Art
Exhibition (New Generation Art Plan, Beijing, China), in which he continued to improve himself.
Toward the end of 2004, he told me that he decided to go to Beijing and be a professional artist. I
said, “You should have made such a decision, for you wouldn’t be recognized in the
Northeast and it means great efforts if you stay here.” So he started his career as a professional
artist in Beijing. On one evening in the spring of 2006 he called me saying that Zhu Qizhan Art
Museum in Shanghai was organizing an exhibition for young artists at, asking each
participants to donate one work, and one of his works, a big one, also his favorite, was chosen. He
was reluctant to part with it. I told him that it took young artist a lot to grow. It is only the starting
point, when it was certainly not something bad for him to contribute one work to the museum, for
he had a long way to go. I asked him to send me some of his recent works, which were to strike
me the moment I saw them—You Jin was becoming mature. I was impressed by almost all the
works, and, in particular, by his talent and insight.
Life, in this highly developed modern society based on information, is becoming more and more technology-and-intelligence related. The interpretation of historical image leads to complanation and popularization of knowledge, so that both history and reality are what to be consumed, and moreover, the problems in our life, prior of present, can be effaced from the memory amid consumption and cheap entertainment. Our life is generated from an uncertain virtual world of illusion. Such is the impression I got from You Jin’s paintings after he settled down in Beijing. In his early works, there were still traces of imitation in his painting pattern, while his works in 2005 experienced substantial changes— figurative paintings were replaced by planar ones with abstract image. What is more valuable is his transition from personal concern to humanism as a whole. The individuals were put in a broader context. This decisive change enables him to express his thought more thoroughly in a broader social context. In Contemporary Apocalypse Series (2006), various concerns, such as city, war, history, politics and popular culture, were combined and arranged in different tableaus. As to techniques, turning images blended with advanced modern technology offer him a completely new visual world. For him, computerized images can be used in painting, such as Contemporary Apocalypse: Bomber, Contemporary Apocalypse: Night-Garden and Contemporary Apocalypse: Beautiful City. In these series, the central figure in the front, in the wide background of darkness, is given the same brightness, with yellow the principal light source color, so that a neon-light effect is achieved, with the implication that the world is grotesque, uncertain and virtual.
You Jin’s paintings can be viewed as an effort to create inorganic state of painting by means of organic forms in the tableau. Once chosen, this way of painting is employed to express the more profound and broader human solicitude.
In Porcelain-crashing Series (2007), he depicted further the disaster and panic that modern industrial technology brings to human beings. Many pictures of car collision were used to raise our awareness of the problems in a world characterized with industry and social consumption, which leads to an important paradox about the relationship between the social availability of the transformation of goods and their sense—the non-knowledge of the reality is part of its essence, and the social availability and unavailability in the exchange can be realized only when the individual involved is unaware of the particular condition of logic, that is, a certain reality of non-knowledge implied to the involved subject in the ontological unity. If we are “too much informed” or “see through the actual role of social reality”, such reality will dissolve automatically. To the social symptom due to the particular demand for goods and satisfaction of desire for material, You Jin responded intuitively. It signifies at the same time that he himself is, without exception, within the frame of the society for exchange, and everybody is trapped in this frame.
The car collision series are composed of a series of images based on indistinct and moving colorful lines. Digital duplications are lapped over in a black and destructive background. Bright colors and black background bring forth a splendid tragedy, a resplendent nirvana. Mass consumption is a continuous dissipation of the subjects in the unconscious enjoyment. The ceaseless demand for natural resources and the ever-developing high-tech pave the way to hell for human beings while facilitating their life. We are all the time accompanied by the paradox of happiness and sadness, of birth and ruin. It can be sensed, but not caught and avoided. In the broad context of highly modernized world, the self is by no means a tiny unit in that in a broad and secure field, it sometimes takes the form of experience intermingled with turbulence, either subtle or naked, and generalized anxiety. Restlessness, expectation, and disappointment may be mixed with the trust one gives to a society or a technical institution to make up the individual experience. A series of issues related to cultural ecology of the present world, such as ego, privacy, and body, are all connected with the consumption of postmodern media images in the process of globalization, thus forming particular superficial social features.
Secret Susurrus and Up and Downs express a kind of reflective thinking of urban culture and history in the postmodern context. The paintings offer create a visual world of ups and downs, a mirage of new urban scene, which, in order to clear up the dignified and glorious significance of cities and centers of power in the past, is to rewrite the transformed history, i.e., to change the former state and the one-dimensional and politics-centered history into multi-dimensional visual images. History is thus turned into a mixed and misty context between the “signifier” and the “signified”, leading to new possibilities. The rearranged urban scene, given the natural settings particular to traditional Chinese landscape paintings, seems to be lament over the loss of our own culture in the process of globalization. Again, in non-knowledge conspiracy, one gets involved in producing new pain while focusing on the loss. While giving stress on “soft power”, we are facing with “soft power” from other cultures, which is clearing up the essential elements in our traditional culture. The new CCTV building, “Water Cube”, and “Bird’s Nest”, for example, are all new landmarks, but at the same time an irony to our traditional culture. Our amazement is accompanied with a tinge of melancholy. His goal for 2008 is to reduce the effect of painting, while trying to offer possibilities of superficial historic interpretation, to attract more attention to tradition, so that the message can be obvious in the tableau, speaking for itself.
The effective use of digital techniques and computer enables him to bring to us digital images free of painting elements, a particular way of narration to express how he identifies with and interprets the present living space, not only to remind himself as a young artist to assume social responsibility and responsibility for the future, but also to remind us to reflect over how to understand our society, living space and culture, and how to effectively take care of what is invaluable in our local culture and local ecology. Only in this way can we face the future with confidence.
Wang Yigang at Xiashen Art Garden, Sheyang,
June 3, 2008
